Come Undone
by eiahmon
Summary: Naminé watches Marluxia and thinks on what she sees.


**Disclaimer: Don't own, not mine. Got it?**

**A/N: I blame Alphabet Pie for part of this one. I took a break from writing this to browse her (his?)1,000 Prompts Challenge, and after reading #013 Harmony, the image of Marluxia playing a piano stubbornly refused to leave. At least I find Marluxia at a piano believable (and fitting). My stubborn mental image of Xehanort with a violin doesn't work as well. XD**

_Who do you need? Who do you love, when you come undone?_ - Duran Duran

Naminé watched him sometimes, though she was careful to never be too obvious about it. He was tall, graceful, elegant, and though she would never admit it to herself, much less him, very beautiful. Looking at him, with his deep blue eyes, soft pink hair, and feminine features, one couldn't tell that beneath him lurked a cruel monster, one that took great delight in tormenting her. All it took was one wrong word from her, and those gorgeous blue eyes would darken with anger, his elegant face would twist with sudden rage, and he would use words to cut her so deeply that she feared the wounds would never heal.

He never struck her physically – that was Larxene's forte – but his words hurt badly, so much so that she wished that he would raise his hands to her. She wished that he would slap her, punch her, or even kick her, anything but lash her with words so cold and cruel that they left her a sobbing heap in the stark whiteness of her room.

But then, sometimes she glimpsed another version of him, another Marluxia, who was kind, and who was protective of her. It was this Marluxia's sheltering embrace that she always ran to whenever Larxene became violent with her, when Vexen treated her as a specimen instead of a person, or when Axel treated her as an object to be pushed around. It was this Marluxia that would cradle her in his strong arms and talk to her softly when she woke screaming from a nightmare that she couldn't remember, who would bring her sketchpads, pencils, and crayons, who would allow her to go for walks in his garden provided that she didn't touch anything, and would tell her stories that would make her smile.

She didn't know which, if either, was the real Marluxia, but she knew that, like herself, he was a Nobody and thus couldn't feel emotions, which meant that his kindness and concern weren't real. That also meant, though, that neither was his anger and rage. Why then, did he act the way he did? She didn't understand, but she wasn't about to ask him about it. Just because the emotions weren't real, that didn't mean he couldn't express them like they were.

But, she wasn't supposed to have emotions either, yet she _did _have them. She knew this because she did not have any memories of her somebody's life, so her emotions _had_ to be real, because she could not _remember_ how how to act them out. If hers were real, did that mean that Marluxia's were too? If they were, did he know? Or did he just assume he was acting without bothering to really_ feel_?

There were other signs too; the care and gentleness that he showed the multitude of plants and flowers in his garden, talking to them, cooing to them like they were his babies (She'd _never_ let him know that she had heard him doing such a thing, _ever._) watering them with care, tending to them with such devotion. Were those the actions of someone that had no emotions and couldn't feel?

Then there was the time that she had heard an unfamiliar sound, and she had followed it through the blank white halls to its source as it continued on, on its melancholy tempo, and she swore that she felt the heart that she didn't have constricting in pain, until she felt it might rupture under the feeling. It was then that she had found the source, in a small room that she had never been in before, where she found Marluxia seated with his back to the door, on a bench in front of some kind of musical instrument. During a pause in the music he had turned and seen her standing in the doorway, and she had expected the rage to overtake his beautiful features again, but instead, he had only smiled softly at her and beckoned her forward with one ungloved hand.

A bit surprised to see his hands free of the normal black gloves, she had hesitantly walked forward until she was standing beside the bench in front of the instrument, a piano, he said it was called, and she had let out a surprised squeak when he had picked her up by her tiny waist and sat her down on the bench beside him and began to tell her about he various parts of it; the keyboard, the pedals, the hammers and strings, all of the things that allowed it produce the wondrous sounds that she had heard earlier. He explained the musical scale and how it correlated to the keys, though he had no sheet music to show her. He had played the earlier piece purely from memory. As he talked, she had looked into his eyes, and his gaze was far away, lost in a memory, and he had looked so sad then that she reached out without thinking about it and wrapped her arms around him.

She had felt him stiffen, and then he had pushed her roughly away from him, off the bench, and onto the hard floor, while he had rose and, in a swirl of black material, strode from the room like nothing had happened. She had returned to her white room and her paper and pencils, confused at had what just happened, and when she had gone back to the small room the next day, the piano was gone. In it's place was a broken pile of shattered wood and metal strings. She had found him in his garden then, but he had angrily shoved her out instead of allowing her to look around like normal and had ordered her to go to her room and stay there.

That incident had set her to wondering. Did he truly not have any emotions? Or did he have them and refuse to feel them for whatever reason? And if that was the case, what about the others?

It wasn't until several days later that she was able to approach him again, and they never spoke of the piano or the beautiful music that he had coaxed from it.

Days, weeks, months, or even years later – time had no meaning for her in the white silence that was Castle Oblivion - she found Marluxia at the very top of the castle. Sora was gone, looking for her no doubt, so it was only her and Marluxia in the large, cavernous room. The pink haired Nobody was lying still in the center of the floor, tendrils of darkness drifting up from him as he began to fade away. She had cautiously approached him, and his exhausted blue eyes had tracked her as she moved silently across the floor towards him.

It was clear that it was too late to save him, even if she had been capable of doing so. She could do nothing, so instead she sat down on the floor and carefully pulled his upper body onto her lap and cradled him as best she could. It was the least she could do for the one that had sheltered her from the worst of the others.

It was then, as she held him and stroked his hair that he came apart. He cried, wailed, and screamed out his frustration, rage, denial, misery, and fear. The raw emotions poured from him like the tears that were running down his face. Neither one of them knew what happened to Nobodies upon death, so they had no idea what afterlife, if any, awaited him. Finally, his cries quieted, and his blue eyes sank shut for the last time, and he looked as if he was merely sleeping as he dissolved into nothingness, leaving her holding nothing but the empty air where he had been.

She sat there for a moment longer, staring at her empty arms, before she stood up just as a waited for voice spoke from behind her.

"Naminé."

She turned to face him, and tried to ignore the single tear that ran down her cheek to drip to the floor below. Sora was standing in front of her, and she had things that needed to be done. But even as she led him to the pods where he and his friends could rest while she restored their memories, she knew that Marluxia's final moments – holding him while he came undone – would haunt her forever.


End file.
